My Accidental Jihad by Krista Bremer Read Free Book Online

the shoulders; smoothing those crisp sheets tight across mattresses so that the next patient could slip between them like a letter into an envelope; pouring glasses of ice water for patients whose lips were cracked and dry. I liked to linger in the rooms of invalids who seemed to be suffering from a terminal case of loneliness, who brightened in my presence as if my company were the only medicine they required. I loved the sense of being that helpful, that needed—but the word
nurse
made me think of a saintly woman in white making her endless rounds allowing those in need to suckle the life from her. Her nipples might be cracked and sore, her breasts might hang flaccid at her sides—and still the comfort she offered would never be enough; eventually all that hunger would consume her. No, I would never be a nurse or a wife, I once thought—I would never be ravaged by another’s demands.
    I reached into the plastic bag on my lap.
Congratulations on your marriage!
the leaflet read. On the back side was a business reply card, which I could drop in the mail to receive a free trial issue of a women’s home and garden magazine. The bag also contained trial-sized samples of a wife’s tools of the trade: a vacuum-packed sample of instant coffee, a single serving of laundry detergent, shiny envelopes of aspirin and antacid tablets.
    I saw myself hunched over the kitchen table in a nubby robe in an empty house, after everyone else who lived there had fled the home in pursuit of meaning and fulfillment. I saw myself drinking instant coffee as the laundry machine shuddered in the background, digging through bathroom drawers for an aspirin to assuage the dull ache of missed opportunities. But then I caught Ismail’s eye, and he squeezed my hand and smiled. His gaze moved from my crestfallen face to the items in my lap and he began to chuckle, and I could not help but laugh ruefully as well. Back at our house, I tossed my wedding gift bag into the garbage.

5
Expecting
    H eaving my eighth-month belly before me, I hurried past the bright storefronts of the mall, holding on to Ismail’s arm with my ringless left hand and barely noticing the curious stares of shoppers who looked away sheepishly when they caught my gaze. In our small southern town, we presented a strange picture: a tall, very pregnant blue-eyed blonde in her twenties, led by a balding, dark-skinned middle-aged man with a discernible accent. I waddled on swollen ankles as quickly as I could; I was running out of time. We had driven straight to this mall from our obstetrician’s office, after her eyes had widened in surprise during my pelvic exam. “It looks like this baby is coming sooner than we expected,” she said. “Do you have everything you need at home?”
    She rolled back her stool and peeled off her latex gloves, revealing the largest diamond ring I had ever seen. I stared at her hand, briefly imagining that glittering gem on my own finger, then shot a nervous glance at Ismail. The only evidence in our house that we were expecting a baby was the checkered blue bassinet in the corner of the bedroom, which we had recently purchased at a yard sale. From the moment I had discovered, to my great surprise, that I was pregnant, it felt like we had been scrambling to catch up with reality as it unfolded. I’d imagined we would spend the final month of my pregnancy preparing a nursery, but now it appeared we might not have that time.
    “We’ve got everything we need,” Ismail replied with calm conviction, as if he truly believed that all a newborn needed was a mother’s milk and a father’s gentle hands. “Well, we
are
missing diapers,” he added, then flashed me a nervous smile.
    “Pick some up on your way home,” the doctor said briskly. “Krista’s cervix is already dilating; just a few centimeters more and she’ll be in labor.”
    As Ismail drove to the nearest mall, I rested my head against the window and recited a jumbled and increasingly panicked